Everyone's in Love With Russian Billionaire's Dimbulb Curator Girlfriend
Dasha Zhukova is 27, beautiful, and "like, really bad at remembering names" of artists. She's opening the gallery Garage Center for Contemporary Culture in Moscow, with the help of her oil-tycoon/Putin crony boyfriend Roman Abramovich's money. (Remember, he's the one who set record art-auction prices last spring for buying a Lucian Freud and a Francis Bacon for $86 and $33 million.) The WSJ ends their profile on her with this puzzling declaration: "It is easy, of course, to see Ms. Zhukova as just another oligarch princess frittering away millions in her quest for social standing and substance. But at least she's doing something honorable with her money–helping to boost the profile of contemporary art and culture in Russia. It sure beats buying handbags." I guess?Well, somebody needs to prop up the American art-auction market. Plus, Russia does not have very many vanity-project contemporary art galleries. Everyone's profiling Zhukova this month, trying to figure out if she's actually some kind of idiot art-savant or just a "wealthy diletantte" who "can't name a single artist she likes," as the Guardian put it. We'll save you the time of reading the flurry of profiles and go with that. "I didn't study art history and don't remember names of artists," she told the NYT. Come on, hon, you gotta give us more to work with than that.